By: Angelo Biondo
ITALIAN WEDDING COOKIES (I THINK)
I’m not really sure what to call these cookies. My wife and mother always called them Italian Wedding Cookies, but my Lebanese aunt (married to my Italian uncle) called them Lebanese Wedding Cookies. My hispanic co-worker called them Mexican Wedding Cookies, and I’ve heard them referred to as Snowball Cookies, Butter Ball Cookies (I thought that was a turkey) and I’ve even heard them referred to as Russian Tea Cookies. All I really know for sure is that they are goooooooood, and I don’t care what people call them.
There are several variations, and they all seem to come out about the same, so the recipe I’ll give you, is the one we use the most. And since I’m Italian, we will call it an “Italian Wedding Cookie Recipe”
ITALIAN WEDDING COOKIES
(makes about 6 doz.)
Ingredients:
- 2 c unsalted butter
- 1 1/2c confectioners sugar (Reserve 1/2 c for coating)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 3/4 cups finely ground walnuts or blanched almonds
- 4 tsp pure vanilla extract (add a couple of tsp if its the flavoring)
- 3 1/2 c sifted all-purpose flour
Directions
- Preheat oven to 325° F.
- Cream the butter in a bowl.
- Gradually add confectioners sugar and salt.
- Beat until light and fluffy.
- Add the walnuts or almonds, and vanilla.
- Blend in flour gradually and mix well.
The cookie dough should be a crumbly meal like mixture at this point, that can be shaped into crescents.
Using about 1 tsp per cookie, form into cresent shape and place on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes being careful not let brown. The cookies shoul be just starting to turn color but very light in color.
Cool slightly and roll in the 1/2 c of confectioners’ sugar yor reserved earlier.
Some variations you may want to try:
If you like lemon pie, you haven’t had lemon pie until you’ve had a lemon pie made with
Sheriffs or Dr. Oetker’s lemon pie filling. It’s not the easiest pie filling to get, but we live near the Canadian border and its readily available in Canada. Its sold here in the States under the “Dr. Oetker” brand name and when coupled with a flaky pie crust, its to die for. Bottom line, is if you find it in your super market, they will probably also carry the tiny viles of Dr. Oetker’s pure lemon extract - and that is what we are interested in today.
For a lemon flavor Italian Wedding Cookie, follow the instructions above and add a vile of Dr. Oetker’s pure lemon extract to the dough mixture. There are several small viles to a box (2 or 3), one will be sufficient, it is very strong. In addition, you can add 1 tsp of Kool-Aid lemon-aid powder mix to the confectioners sugar to add a hint of lemon flavor to the coating if you like.
If you prefer to roll the dough into balls instead of cresents, you might want to add 1 tsp. of cherry extract to the dough while mixing it. Wrap the dough around a pitted marachino cherry and roll the baked cookie in a cherry flavored powdered surgar using Kool-Aid Cherry flavoring.
Using the base cookie recipe, you can change the flavor slightly or radically by adding chocolate chips, or roasting the nuts before grinding, using a variety of different nuts, etc. I swear just changing the shape from the traditional cresent shape to round balls makes a difference in taste. It’s probably my imagination, but I’m convinced it effects the flavor.
That’s it for now, but keep posted - I intend to post a few more of our favorite cookie and pastery recipes every couple of days.
Watch for our canoli recipe coming next.
Enjoy!
